


A Mother's Touch

by codenamecynic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes words just aren't enough; the aftermath of All That Remains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rated M for safety (includes some usage of strong language, references to violence and heavy emotional themes).

It smelled of rot, of blood, and of burning metal.

"Get out. All of you."

"Hawke…"

"Leave me! For once in your lives, just do as you're told."

They'd left, then, each of her friends melting away into the night. Someone went to fetch the guard, one to gather the rest of their companions, and still another to the estate to tell them to make ready.

When the guards arrived to retrieve her mother's body and the mangled corpse of the mage, Hawke was not there.

**

She'd come as soon as she'd heard, her heart heavy in her chest. The uniform she was so proud of, the one that proclaimed her Guard-Captain and protector, weighed her down like an armload of bricks.

It was Wesley all over again. Another soul who depended on her, taken from her care by forces she could not fight and circumstances she could not prevent.

And if Aveline was blaming herself, she could only imagine how Hawke would feel.

She found her friend sitting at her desk, the scratching of a pen the only sound that filled the large and sparsely appointed bedchamber. Hawke did not even look up.

"Hawke…" The expression on the other woman's face was cold and blank, almost as though she were asleep or dead, but yet her hand kept writing, undeterred. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Everything is fine, Aveline. There is nothing more to be done tonight."

Bullshit. "Hawke, stop it. Don't do this to yourself."

"Leave it, Guard-Captain."

"Hawke."

Nothing.

"Marian…"

The scratching sound abruptly stopped, but still Hawke didn't look at her, staring straight ahead at the wall instead.

"Don't. Just don't."

**

Aveline had never been on a ship before. Sure, there had been the occasional small ferry, but only for crossing rivers. Never before had she been out on the wild sea where every gust of wind, every wave against the hull made the ship rock perilously. It made her sick, more often than not.

They had been at sea for weeks, and for the most part she sat quietly, curled beneath a blanket that all of the women shared; Hawke, her sister Bethany, their mother. None of them felt much like talking, only trying their best to persevere as the days dragged on and on. The air in the hold was foul; the smell of far too many bodies packed all together was overwhelming, even when one had grown used to it. Tempers were high, nerves worn raw by the shortage of food, poor water, and the utter lack of privacy.

Someone had grabbed her arm when she stood up to relieve herself, luridly offering to help. She'd shaken off the offending hand, lip curling in disgust. Hawke had gotten up at that point, taking off the tattered jacket she wore and handing it to her sister, proceeding to beat the man savagely and dispassionately with her fists while the rest of the passengers looked on in silence, too numb to even care.

Everyone had left them alone, after that.

It had taken everything they had just to get this far, all their fighting skill, all their coin, all their energy. Aveline was not sure that the sacrifice was a worthy one. They had nowhere to go, nothing to do but sit and think and hurt.

Bethany cried sometimes at night, her head pillowed against her mother's arm as Leandra sought to sooth her daughter's grief, mourning the twin whose body had been crushed defending their mother from an ogre.

An ogre. Maker. It was the stuff of violent fairytales.

Hawke, for her part, had not uttered more than a cursory word to anyone in days. The woman's gaze was haunted, dark circles beneath piercing blue eyes telling only of heartache and sleeplessness. Aveline could not bear to approach her yet, only able to think of Wesley and the part, small but significant, that Hawke had played in his death.

The image of Hawke handing her a dagger, standing at her elbow to see the deed done, replayed over and over in her mind.

It had not been until they had breached the docks of Kirkwall that her grief had come fully to bear. Like so many other refugees they were left to prowl the Gallows, barred entry into the city without the proper bribes. Hawke was determined to get them in, somehow, no matter what she had to steal or who she had to kill. The idea of trading their bodies for coin was at the forefront of all of their minds, more so as their supplies ran ever lower. Bethany had been propositioned twice, and that was in spite of her elder sister reacting in the only way she seemed to know how, with violence and less than idle threats.

Eventually it was too much, it was all too much; Aveline had taken herself down by the waterside, sitting alone on the steps there with Wesley's shield in her lap. There was still blood caked in the crevasses, making the heraldry there stand out all the more harshly.

Eventually it was Leandra who came to sit at her side, arms folded around her knees as both women watched the waves break softly against the pylons. The silence stretched out like the ocean before them.

"I'm sorry about your man, your Wesley," the older women had offered finally, her voice soft. It made the grief squeeze around Aveline's heart. "That you grieve for him so tells me that he was a good man. I will never forget how he offered Carver absolution at the last. It makes it all somehow easier to carry, impossible as it is. And heavy."

"He was a good man," Aveline agreed, softly. "I failed him."

"You gave him peace, which was all he asked for at the end. He spoke of love to you, not regret."

Aveline could not find anything to say, the lump in her throat having risen to impressive size.

Leandra sighed, and was silent for a time. "It is never easy to lose the ones you call your own. Malcolm was a good man, too, Marian and Bethany's father. And Carver's. He was an apostate like Bethany, so life was never going to be easy. But when he smiled, Maker. It put the world right. That's all that mattered." Leandra's smile was wistful, reflective. "That's what I try to remember, when things get hard. To live for him and all the little blessings he gave me."

Aveline closed her eyes, all of the memories she had denied herself pouring back in to fill her up like a cup, overfull. She remembered the longing looks, the gentle touches, the pleasure they shared and the love that gave her happiness for all the time they had together. How it was all worth it, so worth it, fleeting as it might have been.

For the first time since Wesley died in her arms, she wept and Leandra held her, rocking her quietly as she cried herself out.

And the next day she traded his templar shield for food to fill their bellies.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a bowl full of white lilies on the mantle.

There were other flowers too, predominantly of the white variety, arranged in decorative vases. The smell in the room was sickeningly sweet, cloyingly so, like too much Orlesian perfume.

None of it bothered him, though, but the lilies.

"Bodahn, get rid of these."

"Of course, master Varric." The other dwarf actually looked relieved, taking the bowl of lilies from his hands. "Gladly. Only… well, the mistress has seen them already. I was going to throw them away and she told me not to bother. Said it didn't matter anymore."

Varric sighed, one hand coming up to rub at his eyes. This had all gone straight to the darkest part of the void, and he wasn't sure how to get them back from here. It was like standing on a pillar at the top of a mountain; the only way you could go was down.

"She doesn't know what matters right now. Just get rid of them. And get rid of any more like them."

**

Leandra Hawke was not who he'd expecting to see, strolling into the Hanged Man first thing in the morning on a Tuesday.

At first he remembered thinking he was drunk, perhaps hallucinating, or that Isabela had possibly slipped something into the last mug of beer the night before as she was always threatening to. The wench had far too much of a fixation on chest hair.

But no, she was there, and she'd brought him a pie. He'd always heard about mothers who brought people pies, but as his own mother was more likely to smash an empty wine bottle over your head he wasn't certain if there was any truth to the stories, or if they had been loving fabrications of someone bored who obviously fancied pie.

And yet, pie. How could he not invite her in?

"Mistress Hawke," he'd said, shuffling papers and books onto the table to clear for her a place to sit. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Alright, so maybe that's not how it happened. Maybe he had woken up, drunk, to find Hawke's mother peering at him with a concerned expression. And maybe it did also involve pie. But in the truer version of the story, he was not nearly so composed. There was no 'to what do I owe the pleasure', or 'top of the morning to you, missus'.

The first thing he said was, "I'm sorry."

Bethany… Sunshine. She had fallen in the Deep Roads to the Taint, and wherever she'd gone, she'd taken all of the warmth in the world with her. Hawke had ended it as gently as she could before it was too late, and now all of the light had gone out of her as well.

He didn't know where she'd gone after she'd returned to the Hawke family home in Lowtown to break the news to her family, but she hadn't come there. He would have known since he'd been rooted to the bar, understanding for a time that all he could do was drink.

Drink, and fantasize about gutting Bartrand.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. It wasn't Hawke's fault, it was mine. I should have never have led them down into the Deep Roads, I should have known that it was too dangerous. I should have known that my bastard brother would betray us…"

Leandra's eyes squeezed shut in pain, and Varric remembered thinking that he would eat one of Bianca's bolts whole if he'd made her cry. Not that the thought hadn't been tempting enough on its own, as of late.

"Varric, stop." Her smile was strained, but it was gentle, and it was there. "It wasn't your fault, and you couldn't have known. You have done the best you could for my family, and the rest is up to the Maker."

"Hawke thinks-"

"Marian thinks what Marian will think. She always has, and she always will."

Her response was quicker, sharper than he'd expected and it made his perpetually wagging tongue fall silent. If he was hurting then they all were hurting, and her not least of all.

She sighed. "The truth is, Marian believes what she does because I put it in her head. It is always easier to find someone to blame, and she has always been the strongest of us all. The truth is, I have done wrong by my child and I don't know if she will ever let me make it right. She's so stubborn…"

And killing herself with hate and sorrow he wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come out. He didn't dare say them out loud.

The sad smile had returned to her face and she stood up to leave, crossing toward the door and turning back to look at him. "The truth is, I came by to ask you for a favor. Watch over my little girl, Varric. She has lost so much already."

When she left he put his head in his hands and wept.


	3. Chapter 3

The door was open just a crack, and though she knew she should not intrude, Merrill could not help herself nor put aside the compulsion to look through.

Hawke was pacing before the fire. She was dressed in her armor for all that she stood within the safety of her own home, her weapons strapped to her back as though ready for an attack or an ambush even in her own bedroom. Merrill wondered if she had slept at all since the night her mother died, or if she had simply been this way, stalking back and forth across the room like an animal caged.

There were papers in her hands, scattered on the floor, and she was talking to herself, the sound barely carrying beyond the crackle of the flames. The elf's heart squeezed within her chest for the intrusion on such a private moment, but still she did not move.

"There's nothing here," Hawke was saying, and Merrill saw for the first time how her friend's hands shook. Page by page was discarded, falling to litter the ground like leaves. "Maker, there's nothing here. How can there be nothing here?"

Hawke's voice rose in pitch, punctuated by the sound of shattering glass. She had picked up an empty bottle and hurled it at the wall, the vessel exploding into a thousand jagged pieces. A glass with something dark in it followed.

"How can there be nothing here?"

A chair was kicked over, splintering as it impacted the floor and slid into the wall. Something was picked up from just beyond Merrill's vision, a small chest, and hurled with force against the stone mantle. It came apart into pieces, scattering debris and small items across the floor.

Hawke fell to her knees before the fireplace, her slim, shaking body outlined by the flames.

"Maker, what do I do now? Where do I look? Where do I go? I have always done what must be done, what was asked of me, even when it was hard and it hurt and no one else understood. I have weathered the blame in their eyes, their accusations even when I have tried to do right, to do good. And now you have taken everything from me. Is it not enough? Will it ever be enough? Or will you only be satisfied when I have destroyed _everything_ good in my life?"

The motionless figure stared silently into the flames, as though she expected and deserved no answer.

"Maker, give me strength. Make me a stone. Make me a stone…"

In the silence that descended, she watched as slowly Hawke began to pick up the small pieces of her life before that she'd scattered, as though it might grant her a second chance to try again. One that would never come.

Tears streaming down her face, Merrill ran, and did not have the heart to tell anyone what she had seen.

**  
She was never going to get the dirt out.

She had scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more until her hands were raw and the floor looked abused, but still it was dirty. Oh, sure, she was Dalish of course. A little dirt shouldn't have bothered her, but this was city dirt, and smelled of dung and refuse.

Hawke had come by the day before to check on her, bringing her a few sundries to make her feel more at home. Merrill had been overjoyed and deeply touched at the gesture, that someone so busy and as capable as Hawke should spare an errant elf and a total stranger her energy and time. That her little home was in such a state, though, was humiliating. She thought she would die if anyone else saw it like this. They had already seen the Dalish at less than their best, and they would think they were no better than animals if they watched her try and scratch out an existence in such squalor.

When Hawke's mother had shown up at her door with a potted plant in one hand and a parcel under her arm Merrill thought she would sink through the floor in shame, terrified that Leandra would think less of her, or worse, tell Hawke about the elf's pathetic display.

She needn't have worried. In retrospect, she should have known that to begin with. How could a woman who had raised such a heartbreakingly good person as Hawke be in the least unkind?

"I wasn't expecting anyone," Merrill had stuttered quickly, trailing after Hawke's mother as she stepped inside the dingy building to lay her burdens down. "That is to say, anyone - everyone! – is welcome, always, but I thought maybe I should clean up a little so it wouldn't be so horribly unpleasant. That's not to say I'm not grateful to Hawke for bringing me here, she was so kind and she didn't have to help me find somewhere to live, but she did, and if I can only get the dirt out of the floor…"

She realized she was babbling and stopped, only to burst completely into tears when Leandra gave her a kind pat on the arm and handed her the potted plant.

"It's beautiful!" she sobbed, trying not to wail with only partial success.

"There there dear, there there." Leandra took her by the arm and sat her down outside on the stoop, just letting Merrill cry herself out and paying no mind to the muted bustle of the alienage and the elves who looked blatant askance, curious and suspicious of what a shemlan was doing in their midst with the little Dalish newcomer.

Hawke's mother was as capable as Hawke herself, and seemed just as uncaring of unspoken rules; the young elf was beginning to understand where her new friend's backbone of steel came from. Leandra and her daughter had the same mouth, even, the same stubborn chin. When Merrill's sobs had wound down into sniffles and sighs, Hawke's mother had taken her back inside and explained to her patiently how one properly cleaned the inside of a building. She'd shown her how to work the soap she'd brought into a brush, how to use it to coax the dirt and scum from the floor, and then how to take buckets of water and rinse it all away, sweeping it out the door or down a drain so that the dirty water wouldn't just collect in pools and foul up the floor again.

Permanency was a new notion for Merrill, but Leandra hadn't asked or expected her to explain. She'd remembered later how Hawke had mentioned in passing that they had travelled continually in her childhood, never calling any place home for long. She wondered how much of that was why both women seemed set on helping her settle into this new place that she'd decided to call her own.

When the sun was setting and Leandra made her way back to the house she shared with her daughters and brother on the other side of Lowtown, Merrill walked with her, even knowing that she'd more than likely get lost trying to find her way back. It was well worth it; when she returned, for once, her feet did not stick to the floor and the whole place smelled of lemons.


	4. Chapter 4

He'd used the passageway through the cellar, letting himself quietly into the Hawke estate. Hawke's mabari knew him, only whuffling softly from his spot before the fireplace when he recognized Anders' scent, not bothering to get up.

It was the middle of the night and he'd thought he would find her asleep; hoping against hope, because it would mean at least she was resting.

She wasn't. He found her on her knees at the top of the stairs in front of her mother's room, her head bowed and her hands folded loosely in her lap. He thought she was weeping at first, but there was no sound and her cheeks were dry when he looked into her face, sinking down to kneel beside her. Not weeping then. Praying.

Above them, above the small table in the alcove, a portrait of a younger Leandra hung. The resemblance to Hawke was startling; he could easily imagine her being the young muse who inspired that painting. Maybe in another life. One not so harsh.

The table was bare except for a small potted plant and a half-burned candle. He sincerely hoped that she had not been kneeling here for all the time it had taken to burn down that far, if only for the sake of her knees. He had no confidence in the thought, however. He knew her, knew how she felt about pain, and weakness too.

She did not look at him until there was a rushing sound. The air next to her crackled a bright blue, and it was no longer Anders who sat there.

 _"You did what was required,"_ said the Anders-who-was-not-Anders, his voice like a hollow drum. _"In this we are united."_

When he returned to himself, she was staring at him and he'd wondered if he'd fallen asleep. "Hawke…?"

She looked away.

**

"And so I said, 'This place is a death trap! If I have to go into the bushes to answer nature's call, you're coming with me!'"

The laughter that followed was genuine and comfortable, and had filled the small room with something that he vaguely remembered felt a lot like happiness. And if not happiness, at least contentment. Anders had almost forgotten what that was like.

They'd crowded around the small table in the tiny Hawke house in Lowtown. Leandra sat at its head, her empty plate pushed in front of her. Anders sat to her right, perched on a rickety stool and leaning with his back against the wall.

Hawke had been there, too, and Bethany, curled up on a bench that he daresay one of them usually slept on, the younger Hawke sister resting her head in the eldest's lap. Hawke was patiently combing through Bethany's hair with her fingers, making the younger woman sigh in contentment and look sleepy, though a ghost of a smile still whispered across her youthful features as Anders regaled them with amusing stories from his time in the Grey Wardens.

Hawke had taken her armor off, though he'd noticed that her weapons very rarely left her side. Did she feel safe nowhere, then? Or was she always expecting an ambush or a templar raid, prepared to jump up and fight at the least inkling of danger? She was damn fast, and capable too. He liked to watch her move, sort of cat-like, whether it was in battle or in the quiet moments like these, idly playing with her sister's hair.

He'd realized he was staring at her and had looked hurriedly away.

When Leandra stood to begin clearing the dishes from the small table they all shared, Anders had taken the opportunity to jump up and make himself useful, trying (he thought poorly) to disguise where all his attention had gone in those last few moments.

"The cook doesn't clean," he'd quoted, taking the plates from Hawke's mother's hands and offering a wide, charming smile in their place. "At least that's what my mother used to say. That was before we figured out that breaking plates got us chased out of the kitchen."

He'd heard Bethany laugh softly. "Sounds like Carver."

At the time he'd recognized the name, but did not realize yet why that had been the wrong thing to say. He heard more than watched Hawke shush her sister, easing herself out from beneath Bethany's head so she could stoop and gather the younger woman up in her arms. "Bedtime for you, sleepyhead."

It felt like he was intruding on an intimate moment, one he had no right to be a part of, so he rolled up his sleeves and got to work on the dishes.

"Malcolm-" Leandra had followed him to the section of the room that functioned as their kitchen. "I mean, Anders." She had laughed, and then had sighed. "I'm sorry. You remind me of my husband, in his younger days. Your sense of humor is much the same."

He hadn't been sure if he should thank her or apologize. If the Hawke sisters were anything like their mother, a carelessly spoken word could get you spontaneously hugged, or stabbed in the leg.

His lack of response didn't seem to matter as she bustled about, wrapping up food that they hadn't eaten and stowing it away. "I wanted to thank you for looking after Bethany, and Marian, too. I know what you did for my girl after that horrible Arena debacle." Anders had blanched a little, not realizing that she'd known about that. "I just wanted you to know that I appreciate it. Marian takes more risks than she should, and Bethany's healing has never been her strongest suit."

Leave it to mothers, he'd thought then, drolly, to make character strengths sound like indictments. And then, because the thought had been less than kind, he'd hung his head and felt sorry for it.

"Honestly, they keep me out of more trouble than they get me into. I'm just glad they occasionally find a use for the stray apostate they picked up on the side of the road." That made her smile and he'd felt relieved, comfortable again. "It's nice to be able to say that out loud without worrying that the templars will swoop down on me at any moment. As they say, swooping is bad."

Leandra nodded, the sympathy on her face making his belly clutch a little. "Magic has been a part of this household since before any of my children were born. We've learned to be careful, but I've never asked my children to deny themselves. After all, their mother was the one who ran off with a rakish, daredevil apostate."

He'd laughed, flirted. "It sounds like quite the story. I'll bet you were a heartbreaker. I'll bet you still are."

She'd only smiled enigmatically, giving his shoulder a small pat as Hawke came back into the room, her arms empty now of her sister's sleeping form. "Come back and bring me those robes to patch. I'll tell you all about it."


	5. Chapter 5

Fenris was the only one who could force her to eat, stoically enduring the backlash of oppressive silence as she took each painful bite, chewing it up and swallowing it as though it tasted of ashes.

**

He had come to call on her in Lowtown, at the hovel that tenuously was home, shared among herself, her sister, mother, and uncle. To say he'd come courting would to have been to assume too much, believing himself that he hadn't the right for all that he'd come only because he was thinking of her.

Her mother had seen him there, wavering on the doorstep, feeling the fool and likely acting one too, too afraid to properly knock on the door for all that it was standing wide open. No one but Hawke could make him feel so utterly unlike himself, so out of his element. Fenris had been shocked to find himself flirting with her when last she came to see him, saying something vaguely obtuse about practicing his flattery as she gathered herself to leave.

Leandra's arms had been wet; he remembered the way she wiped them on the apron she wore, the movement deft and economic, not wholly unlike the efficient way her daughter moved, blades flashing in her hands. "Fenris?" She'd asked when he just stared at her, his tongue tied up in knots, unable to form even the simplest greeting in the right language. "You'd better come in then, child, we'll be eating soon. The girls are washing up and I need some proper help with the stew."

The way she'd said those two words, _washing up,_ was so full of horrified disgust it made him wonder what it was they'd gotten into without him. Obediently he let her usher him inside, treated to the sounds of splashing and squealing from behind a closed door.

"Bethany, it's in your hair!"

"Maker, it's never going to come off!"

He'd wanted to laugh but he thought it might have offended, feeling suddenly inappropriate for having even overheard. "I should not intrude," he'd said finally, standing awkwardly in the middle of the small room, wishing for all the world that his armor had pockets to jam his useless hands into.

"Don't be silly. Be a dear and cut these up for me. Make sure your hands are clean."

Dutifully he'd stripped off his gauntlets and found somewhere out of the way to lay them, scrubbing his hands in a bucket with the soap she'd pressed into his palm. It struck him then that this was perhaps the cleanest home he had ever been invited into, barring Danarius' immaculate manse in Tevinter, kept spotless by the sweat of slaves. It put his own house to shame, worse for the wear now that he'd been living there for some time. He was not much of one for cleaning. Or cooking.

He'd immediately nicked his finger, the small paring knife feeling clumsy in his hand. Leandra had fussed over the tiny scratch as though it were the direst of battle wounds, insisting he rinse it and blotting the small welling of blood with her apron. She'd taken his hands then, and showed him how to properly hold the vegetable – a potato, they called it here – how to lift and lower the knife in a smooth, rolling motion so that the pieces came away even.

"You remind me of my son," she'd said, her hands surprisingly warm and gentle as they rested over his, guiding the motions until he seemed he had the hang of them. "Carver was never one for cooking. That boy could burn water trying to boil it, far too impatient. Bethany's just as bad, though Marian is decent enough, if she can ever be bothered."

He hadn't known what to say to that, still somewhat shaken at the easy way she'd touched him, the skillful, practical guidance.

Hawke had come in then, ruddy and fresh faced as a young girl, and saved him from himself. A slow grin had come across her features as she watched him work, drying her short hair with a towel.

"Why should I torture us all with my cooking, mother, when we have you here? Food you make is far more pleasant. And palatable."

"Flatterer." The word made him flush to the tips of his ears and the roots of his hair, recalling again the foolish thing he'd said before.

Hawke noticed, of course, her expressive mouth curving in amusement. She hadn't said anything about it at the time, merely lifting another apron from a hook on the wall and coming over to drape it around his waist, deft, economic fingers tying it at his back. Teasing him without words.

He would have growled at her, but he thought it might upset her mother. Leandra shooed her when she might have lingered, bustling with plates and silverware.

Hawke, infuriatingly, had no such compunctions about silence. Her eyes sparkled a mischievous blue, never leaving him once. "Looks delicious. I'm starved."

When her mother shot them both a curious look, he thought he'd die.


	6. Chapter 6

Sebastian came to see her every day, when the sun started to go down and it began to get dark.

She was always sitting in the same place, perched on the windowsill in her bedroom with her knees drawn tight to her chest. He only had it on Bodahn's authority that she ever changed from that position. Hawke never acknowledged his presence, never even looked away from the horizon as it spilled out beyond the city.

He tried to talk to her at first, and when his words began to feel like useless platitudes, he turned to the place of his deepest faith and read to her from the Chant.

He'd begun to recite to her the Canticle of Andraste, only to stop midway through and read from Transfigurations instead.

_"Many are those who wander in sin, despairing that they are lost forever, But the one who repents, who has faith unshaken by the darkness of the world, And boasts not, nor gloats over the misfortunes of the weak, but takes delight in the Maker's law and creations, she shall know the peace of the Maker's benediction._

_The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next. For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, She should see fire and go towards Light. The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, And she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword."_

If she heard him at all, she gave no sign.

**

He found Leandra in the Chantry, late in the evening. It was well past sunset, and Sebastian had been surprised to see her there. He had fought alongside her daughter in the streets enough times to know that, for all Hightown pretended at being the safest place in Kirkwall, a woman alone should never be on her own at night unless she was capable. Maybe even then.

He had been praying to the Maker about Hawke, so it had seemed almost fitting that her mother appear like an apparition.

She seemed lost in thought when he sat down next to her, the ability to look through things something the elder Hawke shared with her daughter. Leandra had looked sad, but the expression shifted into a smile quickly enough.

They were so alike; he remembered marveling at the fact that he'd never noticed it before.

Or maybe it was just because he seemed to see her face everywhere he looked.

"Hello, Sebastian."

"Mistress Hawke. Am I disturbing you?"

She'd shaken her head. "Not if you call me Leandra, since you will not let me call you 'Highness'."

He'd smiled easily and folded his hands in his lap. "Fair enough. What brings you to the Chantry so late, Leandra?"

The sadness had returned, there, under the mask of polite civility. "I find myself in need of confession. Will you hear it?"

"I am a Chantry brother, technically, so yes, if that is what you wish. I will keep your confidence."

She was looking through him again, and slowly she'd turned her eyes away to gaze up at the empty pulpit. "I have sinned against my daughter, grievously and repeatedly. I have been cruel, and selfish, and unkind."

He'd been shocked by the fervency of her words and took pains to conceal it. For some misguided reason he hadn't expected this to be about Hawke. That or he'd secretly wanted it to be, he didn't even know anymore. What he did know is that he'd felt sinful, as though he was intruding into a private moment between mother and daughter, and had to remind himself that he had a duty to his faith and a duty to Leandra as a penitent to hear her out and give her what comfort and absolution he may.

She'd seemed lost in thought, the words coming slowly, but clearly. "It's been five years today since my Carver died. My boy, my youngest. He died outside of Lothering, protecting us from the Darkspawn."

"I'm sorry." It was all he could think to say.

Leandra had shaken her head. "The pain of it has passed, though I miss him every single day. What haunts me is what I said to Marian on that hilltop after we watched him… fade. I asked my daughter how she could have let her little brother charge in like that, how she could have failed to protect him. The look on her face… his body still laying there on the ground at our feet… It was unforgiveable."

His heart hurt for her. Hurt for them both. "The Maker forgives all things."

"Then your Maker is kinder than I," she'd said, her wry smile matching her voice. She had continued before he could ask why she'd said it that way, your Maker. "Two years later and it was Bethany. We lost her to the Deep Roads. I'm sure you've heard something about that."

Silently, Sebastian had nodded. That had been after he'd met Hawke for the first time, after she'd decimated Flint Company at his behest. Just one more thing he was still trying to atone for.

"Marian, when she told me… I threw her out. I threw her out of a house that wasn't even mine." She had laughed then, but there was no humor in it. "And what did she do? She took the money from the expedition and bought my family estate back. Sent me the keys and the title; she'd put it all in my name."

That was something he hadn't known. "Sounds like our Hawke."

Leandra nodded. "Exactly like. I guess she thought I wouldn't want her there. I can't blame her for that, not after the way I treated her. I practically called her a murderer to her face. I was just so angry that I couldn't protect my children. This is not the life I had wanted for them, for her. If it weren't for the Blight…"

He would have never known her.

"And now… now she barely looks at me, and she talks to me like I'm a stranger, so full of politeness and… apology. She tells me all she wants is for me to be happy, but… I just can't. Not with all that's happened and all I've said to her."

"Can you speak of this to her?"

Leandra had shaken her head, the movement slow and deliberate. "No, I don't think so. I don't think she would hear me if I tried. Or believe me." She gave a short laugh that broke his heart. "I don't think I'd believe me. For all that I know that it was Bethany's choice to follow her sister into the Deep Roads, that it was Carver's youth and rash decision that ended his life in Lothering, I think part of me really does feel Marian is in some way at fault. Maybe only because it's so much easier to blame someone else than to speak ill of the dead."

She'd stood up then; he remembered looking up at the silhouette of her features against the dim lantern light and marveling again at the resemblance she bore her daughter. He could only pray he would never see the breadth of that sadness on Hawke's face.

"Thank you for listening to an old woman complain. And Marian… you're her friend, Sebastian. I know it goes against the rules to share what you hear in confession, but maybe one day you can tell her that I'm sorry, and that I have loved her all along. Let her know it was never her fault, if I cannot."

Her fingertips had touched his shoulder then and she was gone, and her words had rung behind her like prophecy.


	7. Chapter 7

It was finally broken, and the absence of rage left her empty and spent.

She left the mansion in the middle of the night, drawing her cloak around her against the cold air that she didn't feel but sensed was there. Her intention guided her as though it were her faithful mabari at her side, footsteps taking her through the quiet, empty streets and to the small Hightown graveyard hidden near the Chantry. Her mother's grave was here; it was where she'd intended to go, but instead she found herself in a small corner of the space, the marker at her feet in the shape of a sword with a fragile looking rose twined around it.

Bethany, and Carver, too. She had had nothing to bury when they'd been taken from her. This had been her remembrance of them, the only thing she could provide. The last thing.

"Bethany, I…" It was heavy then, so heavy, and she toppled to the ground with the weight of it, her knees crumbling under her.

"Bethy, I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry…"

The tears could come now, here among the dead in solitude and darkness, where they could not before. They came hot and fast, and she thought she would drown in them.

"I have failed you! I have failed you, little sister. There is no light without you here, and I am so lost… I cannot see my way ahead. I am so sorry for what I did to you, I should not… should not have taken you into that place. I should have known better, taken better care. Now it's too late." She swallowed hard, unable to drive back the emotion that sought to crush her. "And Carver, too, it was my fault. I should have seen it coming. You all looked at me to lead you, and I tried, I swear Bethy, I tried. I tried… And now this."

She could barely breathe for the pain in her chest, and the ground seeped its cold into her bones. She begged for it to open up and swallow her, too.

"Please forgive me, please, please… I dare not ask it of anyone else but you, dare not ask that you beg mother on my behalf. She was right to blame me for all of our misfortunes. For every single bad thing that happened. If I were only faster, if I were only not so stubborn… I'm so sorry, Beth. Please don't hate me. I am so lonely now, here, so empty… Even if the mistakes I've made cost me all the love I am ever to have in this life, I cannot bear to think of you hating me in the one to come afterward."

She had sunk so low, her torso almost lying on her folded knees, that she could feel the damp from the grass on her face. To be able to feel even that chilling sensation was more than she deserved.

"I miss you so much, Bethany. I am so alone without you."

And then the tears came too hard for her to speak through them, and she lay down on the cold, unforgiving ground and let them overtake her with their darkness until there was nothing left.  
**  
She dreamed of her father that night, for the first and last time. He lifted her in his arms as if she were just a child again and held her close, tucking her into bed and pulling the covers up to her chin.

_Papa?_

_Hush my child. My bright star. You have to sleep now._

_Papa, I've broken it. Broken everything._

_No, little starling, that is only your heart that hurts. You have done nothing wrong._

_Carver… Bethany… Mother…_

_You must be strong now, little bird, and allow your wings to mend. You will have need of them._

_How can I do it, Papa? It's too much for me. Too heavy to carry on my own._

_You must gather your pain to you, and take it in your hand. Look at it, if you must. Take it apart and examine it. But then you have to let it go._

_But it's all I have left…_

_I think you'll find that isn't true._

**  
It was Fenris who followed her unseen from her mansion late that night, and Sebastian who was a silent accomplice to her heartbroken confession, but it was Isabela at the last whose gentle fingers undid her armor and slid her into bed.

When Hawke awoke the next morning, it was Isabela's body that was curled against her own, one arm beneath her head and the other about her waist. She turned over to stare uncomprehendingly at her friend, and could only bring herself to ask one question.

"Why is it you?"

Isabela smiled, the expression unexpectedly soft. "It was always going to be me, sweetness. Always had to be." Her hand came up to gently smooth the ruffled locks from Hawke's forehead, and Hawke closed her eyes. Allowed it.

"I'm the only one who didn't know your mother, whom she didn't care for. How else are you to know that I am here to comfort you, and not out of a feeling of some misplaced obligation?"

Hawke's brow furrowed and Isabela's hand lifted again to soothe away the line. "But…"

Isabela shook her head. "I'm not here to seduce you, even I know better than that. Don't get me wrong, if you asked me to your bed I would go in an instant – there's no resisting the lady Hawke and those smoldering blue eyes."

Hawke smiled. Almost. It made Isabela sigh.

"The truth of it is, we're both women of the world, sweet thing. We can't always just come out and say how we feel, or to admit that we feel weak, because it makes us weaker. But we're more than just our blades or our breasts. I can keep your secrets. Yours, at least, are safe with me."

And then, because she couldn't help herself, and because she couldn't do anything else, she cried. And Isabela put her arms around her friend and cried with her. For the sister she too had cherished, and the brother she'd never met, and the mother who'd left behind such love and such regret. And maybe for her own mother, too.

**  
 _Though all before me is shadow,  
Yet shall the Maker be my guide.  
I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond.  
For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light  
And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost. _

_Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,  
I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm.  
I shall endure.  
What you have created, no one can tear asunder._


End file.
